September Flipthrough

Oh look, it’s the middle of October, and I am way too late with my September flip-through, I hope you still like to see it though.

I think the September spreads are rather weird. I picked a strange theme, that was hard to grasp and got even messier nearing the end of the month. My overall theme for September was “Artists”. This was a pretty individual choice based on special September memories. I didn’t feel like doing a regular fall theme. In the beginning of September, I was still in summer mood. The sun was shining, it was still t-shirt weather outside and I didn’t even have work for another week. I tried to come up with something that would still work with the summer mood I was in, but still allow a transition into autumn. I remembered then, that I loved to visit Prague in September some years ago. This was a beautiful holiday and Prague became one of my favourite cities in the world. If I remember Prague, I automatically remember Alfons Mucha, and with that the theme idea was born.

So, every week was dedicated to one of my favourite artists. And I started with Mucha.

The monthly theme page was an autumn themed picture which I copied and afterwards colored with Pencils. I totally messed it up though. But learning by doing guys!

Next, we have the monthly log and the fitness spread. The Exercise tracker is so much better looking than the august one, which made me really happy.

And lastly, we got the first weekly spread for September.

Isn’t it beautiful. I love the color. I normally start collecting ideas for a weekly spread rather early, but I just couldn’t think of anything for this spread. Finally, when I forced myself to sit down and work on it. I noticed the pattern on the image I wanted to use and duplicated it for the whole spread. It should look like the pattern is growing out from that dress.

Next, we have probably my favourite spread of the month. Van Gogh’s starry night. I never really cared about this picture (or the artist) because it is forever overused in western culture. But then, one day, I sat down, and really looked at the picture and something happened and I fell in love. It’s simple and brilliant.

I used colored pencils for the borders, I feared I couldn’t pull it off, but then I started and was surprised how easy it was (is). I just love everything about this spread. Especially the color combination of yellow, orange and blue. Also, you should check out Van Gogh quotes. There were so many good ones, I barely could decide which to pick.

Next, we have Edvard Munch’s Scream. This is where the weirdness is starting. I didn’t have time nor any patience for this spread. So, I just printed out the pictures and created a collage, that would fit Munch’s style. Munch used a lot of sketches in his work to express himself. I tried to incorporate that.

And lastly, we have Dali. I am beginning to believe that I need to have one bad spread per month. I would like to call this an unfortunate accident. After Munch I had no idea who else I could include. I still had some more favorites left, sure (Dürer, Monet, Vermeer, the blue rider) but all of them didn’t fit with the artists before. So, I needed an artist who influenced art after Munch. Also, Mucha, Munch and Van Gogh all had a kind of weirdness to them which I also wanted to keep. In the end it was a choice between Picasso and Dali. So, Dali it was.

While doing the spread though, I realized fast, that I didn’t like Dali’s character much. He had a pretty narcissistic personality, which doesn’t work well with mine, even if his art is pretty awesome and at times beautifully disturbing. I thought I could add a lot of dream like elements like the planets and the clocks. But this made it worse. The best option would have been to just draw one of his famous clocks, but I didn’t have the time nor the patience to do so. I am uncomfortable with the spread, but sometimes this happens, too.

And as a plus we have a watercolor painting, which partly worked. On the other page, we have a quote from Margret Artwood called “We ate the birds”. I love the quote and the mood of the page. I didn’t have any real plan in my head, I just wanted to create something melancholy which symbols yearning for freedom. In a strange way it all came fitting together.

I also created a goodbye summer page and a fall bucket list. The fall bucket list is so much fun, because you can flip off the post-it’s and it will become even more colorful ❤

And lastly, we have a beautiful quote page. Now this is my favourite thing of the whole month. The quote is from a song called Reviver by a band called My First Story. I really love that song. I listened to it the whole summer. It’s really motivating, especially when I go running. On the 2nd page I added a quote from a poet called Rainer Maria Rilke. He is one of my favourite poets and the poem is about someone who is so dearly in love with someone else, that they would give up parts of their body and still be in love with them. The Poem can be found in English here.

Because somehow the whole page focused on the topic of living, staying alive and body functions, I added some more aesthetic features, like the pictures and the heart. Now, the heart was the most disgusting thing I ever drew. I don’t know why, but I had to imagine how the heart would feel in my hands and how it would be glibbery and slimy, and it was not very nice, but it just looks fantastic and fitting on this page. If I would have known earlier what this page would turn into, I probably would have turned the blood vessels into the flowers on the other page and connected both. Sadly, I couldn’t make this work, so imagine this please.

Wow, I am done. I wrote this post over several weeks, because I just didn’t have time to make it in one go. I hope you enjoyed the flip-through for September and you stay turned on for October. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can always ask me through whichever medium you prefer.